Some dead person somewhere had to be rolling over in their grave, and I didn’t blame them.
Finding a train of thought and sticking to it was hard when all I could think of was the fact that I was in heels and my grandmother was wearing a pair of canvas tennis shoes—with sparkly, pink laces.
Every thought inside my head had come to a screeching halt. I shook it, trying to jumpstart the gears and get some thoughts—any thoughts—rolling. “No, I don’t make a habit of inviting strangers in.” Or did I? Because I didn’t recognize the woman standing in front of me at all. “I thought you were someone else.”
Thought?This womanwassomeone else. Ever heard of invasion of the body snatchers? Yeah, I was living it. I half-expected some crazy man to run through my door screaming about “pod people” any minute. Where were her sensible black pumps? Where were her pearls?
And what was up with her hair?
It hadn’t been colored. It hadn’t been straightened. And it hadn’t been hair sprayed to within an inch of its life. I blinked uncontrollably as my gaze followed the natural bumps and corkscrews of hair I didn’t recognize. The longer I stared at it, the more I realized it seemed an awful lot like what my own hair might look like in about fifty years.
“Oh?” The question in her tone sucked me out of the death-spiral of my thoughts and back into the moment. “You’re expecting someone else? I can come back later.”
“What? No. I’m not expecting anyone important today.”
Her left brow flinched, and I caught a momentary glimpse of the grandmother I’d been expecting for the past two weeks.Note to self: Don’t let the yoga pants fool you. Grandmother is still in there somewhere.I had a sneaking suspicion I was going to be in damage control mode for as long as the matriarch of the family was gracing my tiny apartment.
“That came out wrong,” I said. “What I meant to say was that I’m not expecting anyone important besides you.”
Her eyes squinted with a pleasant smile. “Well, are you going to invite me to sit down so we can have that talk you mentioned?”
“Oh, yes. Of course. Please, have a seat.” I couldn’t allow her fluffy hair to lull me into a false sense of security. She might look like my kind, but she was still very much an alien species to me—one that my survival depended on. I couldn’t risk offending her.
She walked over to the futon and paused for a moment, trying to smooth the hair she’d gathered at the nape of her neck—with ascrunchy!“Uh—uh, futon?”
I cleared my throat. “Yes?” I half-whispered the word, my face scrunched into a pitiful plea for approval.
“Ah, yes.” She suddenly nodded and began lightly tapping her temple. “Mindfully mellow. Mindfully mellow.” She muttered the words over to herself several times before pasting a smile onto her face and sitting down.
Her back was rigid, both of her feet were planted squarely in front of her, and the smile on her face made her look like the hapless victim of Joker toxin. She may have been trying to look friendly and approachable, but it was the most terrifying thing I’d ever seen.
I didn’t understand the game she was up to. How was I supposed to play along if I didn’t know the rules?
I tugged the wrinkles out of my skirt and pulled myself together. So what if my grandmother looked like she’d just come from a shopping trip at the dollar store. Maybe she didn’t resemble the woman I remembered, but that didn’t change a thing. It was time to put my plan into action.
“Would you like a snack?” I asked. “I picked up a few of your favorite things this morning.”
“That’s so kind of you, but I wouldn’t want you to go to any trouble.”
Yes, we were on the right track. A polite decline before a polite acceptance was par for the course where Grandmother was concerned. But it was still pretty unnerving to hear her caviar voice coming from a pb and j appearance.
“Oh, it’s no trouble at all. Make yourself comfortable.” I gestured to the futon she was already sitting on as if it were made from Italian leather instead of a rickety metal frame that was more likely to goose her the longer she sat on it. “I’ll only be a moment.” The elegance of my own voice shocked me. If I wasn’t so passionate about my music, I could have pursued a career in acting.
I glided into my kitchen where the oysters still sat on the counter, thrilled that I didn’t stumble or turn my ankle even once. I threw a couple lettuce leaves on a plate to cover most of the faded plastic and placed a few oysters on it in a semi-circle.
I took a half-step back and gave the plate a once over. It didn’t look as fancy as I’d hoped, but it also didn’t exactly look like a trailer park special, either. It would do.
I threw my shoulders back and took a deep breath conjuring the poise I’d observed in my grandmother’s own staff when I was a child… after I was done coughing at the repugnant smell of that seafood.
It was time to impress.
Grandmother was thumbing through one of Jovie’s books when I walked back in. “This is a wonderful book,” she said. “What do you think of the author’s take on financial intermediaries?”
Financial inter-what?
My stomach lurched as one of my worst fears were realized. Grandmotherwasgoing to quiz me. I’d be found out for the fraud I was. There was no getting out of this one, and I was feeling the heat.
I gulped, afraid of what might come out of my mouth if I gave in to my urge to fill the awkward silence I couldn’t ignore. It was so quiet in that room I could hear her blink. I could hearmyselfblink. But what was worse, I could hear my conscience sayingI told you so!
